Meg Whitman: Those Responsible for Autonomy Deal Are Gone

CEO Meg Whitman says her predecessor Leo Apotheker, and Shane Robison, head of strategy, headed up the more-than $10 billion acquisition, which the board of course voted on.

But she says the board panel, of which she was a member at the time, relied on audited information from Deloitte and additional auditing from KPMG. And she's not blaming the accountants.

“Neither of them saw what we now see after someone came forward to point us in the right direction,” Whitman said of the accounting firms, adding “The two people that should have been held responsible are gone.”

Whitman added that the board feels “terribly” about voting on the deal, and that while no other large deals have been done, the company plans to review its acquisition process.

She said one change that has already happened is the team that conducts due diligence used to report to the head of strategy, Robison, but now report to the CFO.

“I'd never seen that before in my career and that's the decision I made right away,” she said.

Comments (5 of 26)

Meg didn't vote in favor of the deal when she was on the Board back then... She and the then present CFO Cathie both voted against. That says it all. You cannot blame someone who voted against in the first place, even though she might be HP's CEO at this moment in time. Besides if Deloitte didn't see it, I mean an accounting team hired to investigate in such matter didn't see it... Hired like in 'HP and/or Autonomy paid big bugs to investigate the books'. I think besides the accounting firms who didn't see it, also the whole share system is rotten to death. Shares were invented to be long term investments... not short term money injectors , what they are now. That is ruining the business... and even some very good companies!

12:42 am November 29, 2012

UK Employee wrote :

In the UK we have seen cuts in salary, redundancies, cuts in benefits, our senior management has long ago grabbed the cash, stock options and pensions and left the workers to struggle, saved themselves, morale is so low that it could not drop any more, most people are doing just enough to keep their jobs, our customers sense that they are not getting value for money and we have lost many of our large flagship accounts. Having EDS on your CV is almost a kiss of death when it comes to getting out, but, our managers are obviously more concerned with applying for jobs often with customers than doing their current jobs. No one doubts that job losses will continue or that Whitman will eventually leave with her pockets overflowing with money. 10 years ago, it was a decent place to work, now it is a hell hole. I would venture this opinion is held by the majority of employees.

12:19 am November 23, 2012

Sam Jarman wrote :

Meg Whitman is the wrong person to lead H-P. First vthing she did was to lay off 23,000 employees in US and exporting all those jobs to China. She immediately showed some profit by wrong cost cutting. Now the Autonomy has come unraveled. I tend to agree with the former CEO of Autonomy that H-P is blaming Autonomy for their mismanagement. Knowing H-P we can say the company is screwed up by inept CEO's. Meg Wittmann continues that tradition. H-P should get rid of Meg and find someone whom knows this business and not pick someone off the street.

7:32 pm November 21, 2012

Phillip wrote :

I worked for HP, invested in it, believed in it & prospered there. Oh yes, & I was laid off by HP, since senior, highly-experienced people were no longer the rage - need "new blood" (who don't cost so much), you know. HP's problems were hatched long before Meg by the lack of vision, competent leadership & hopeless infighting. Then, the real bozo's started with Carly & ended with Hurd - two blow-hard, stuffed-shirts who were quintessential examples of the Peter-Principle. For anyone to succeed now (Meg included), they're going to have to clear the decks of the garbage who's left as well as the garbage they've bought or inherited & somehow re-attract good people & foster the great, productive environment that used to be there & focus the efforts on products that matter.

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